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BumRushDaShow

(163,498 posts) Fri Oct 3, 2025, 02:51 PM Oct 3

RFK Jr fires top NIH scientist weeks after she files whistleblower complaint

Source: The Guardian

Fri 3 Oct 2025 10.25 EDT
Last modified on Fri 3 Oct 2025 15.21 EDT

The US health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, has fired a top scientist at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) just three weeks after she had filed a whistleblower complaint against the Trump administration relating to its hostility towards vaccines, according to a report.

Jeanne Marrazzo has been removed from her NIH job, the New York Times reported. She had already been demoted in March from her senior position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Last month, Marrazzo filed a whistleblower complaint saying that her removal from the top position had been an act of retribution after she had protested about moves taken by the Trump administration to undermine vaccine research. She also alleged in the complaint that Trump officials had been flouting court orders and politicizing decisions over grants.

Kennedy fired Marrazzo in a letter on 26 September that failed to give any explanation for the move. “In my capacity as secretary, I have decided to terminate your appointment as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease,” he wrote, according to the newspaper.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/03/rfk-jr-jeanne-marrazzo-nih-fired

5 replies

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RFK Jr fires top NIH scientist weeks after she files whistleblower complaint (Original Post) BumRushDaShow Oct 3 OP

I hope that when / if we get back in control that we manage the courage to fire all the people that were LiberalArkie Oct 3 #1

She's gonna get millions from the lawsuit... wcmagumba Oct 3 #2

Nice try Numbnutz. For a lawyer, you haven't no_hypocrisy Oct 3 #3

They have apparently not heard of the "Antideficency Act", the "Budget Control and Impoundment Act", BumRushDaShow Oct 3 #4

MaddowBlog-RFK Jr. adds to Team Trump's pattern of punishing whistleblowers LetMyPeopleVote Oct 4 #5

LiberalArkie

(19,129 posts)

1. I hope that when / if we get back in control that we manage the courage to fire all the people that were

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Oct 3, 2025, 03:09 PM

Oct 3

hired during the mega / tea party administrations. You know tit for tat. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

wcmagumba

(5,209 posts)

2. She's gonna get millions from the lawsuit...

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Oct 3, 2025, 03:09 PM

Oct 3

It will come from us taxpayers but I don't care, she deserves it for the mistreatment she received...

no_hypocrisy

(53,808 posts)

3. Nice try Numbnutz. For a lawyer, you haven't

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Fri Oct 3, 2025, 03:30 PM

Oct 3

heard of the federal Whistleblower Act?

BumRushDaShow

(163,498 posts)

4. They have apparently not heard of the "Antideficency Act", the "Budget Control and Impoundment Act",

Reply to no_hypocrisy (Reply #3)

Fri Oct 3, 2025, 03:54 PM

Oct 3

the "Civil Rights Act", the "Hatch Act", nor "Civil Service Acts". So "laws" are meaningless and John Roberts agrees.

LetMyPeopleVote

(172,883 posts)

5. MaddowBlog-RFK Jr. adds to Team Trump's pattern of punishing whistleblowers

Reply to BumRushDaShow (Original post)

Sat Oct 4, 2025, 03:08 PM

Oct 4

In the current administration, whistleblowers keep losing their jobs after speaking up. Take the NIH’s Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, for example.

It's almost as if they don't give a shit about the American people...

RFK Jr. adds to Team Trumpâ€™s pattern of punishing whistleblowers
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

#RFKDidThis #TrumpDidThis #RepublicansDidThis #GOPKakistocracy #AmericanFascistParty #Project2025 #NoRepublicansEverAgain #USPol
— Democracy Matters! (@democracymatters.bsky.social) 2025-10-03T19:09:50.217Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/rfk-jr-adds-team-trumps-pattern-punishing-whistleblowers-rcna235446

Earlier this year, Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, who led the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, discovered that Donald Trump’s appointees were repeatedly questioning the role of vaccines in protecting health. When she raised concerns, Marrazzo was demoted.

That, however, was not the end of the dispute. The infectious diseases specialist filed a whistleblower complaint, and as The New York Times reported in a new piece, that appears to have led to her ouster. From the article:

Three weeks after a leading scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistle-blower complaint against the Trump administration, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy fired her, according to her lawyer and a copy of the termination letter. ... Dr. Marrazzo said in her complaint last month that the N.I.H. had placed her on administrative leave after she objected to Trump administration actions that she said had endangered research subjects, defied court orders and undermined vaccine research.

In theory, Marrazzo might have been able to turn to the federal agency dedicated to protecting whistleblowers, but Donald Trump fired its director and gutted the office......

In theory, there’s nothing especially partisan or ideological about whistleblowers. Sometimes those who work in federal agencies will see some kind of wrongdoing — corruption, mismanagement, inefficiencies, fraud and misuse of resources, etc. — and it’s in everyone’s interest to have a system in which such witnesses are able to come forward, confident in the knowledge that they’ll be heard and respected without being punished.

In practice, that system appears to be unraveling with unnerving speed, sending a signal to federal officials: Those who speak up should expect to be punished.

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